Meta announced the launch of a cloud API to make WhatsApp accessible to all businesses, as well as a paid version of its WhatsApp Business app offering additional features.
Meta continues to expand its service offering for businesses via its galaxy of applications. Indeed, the American giant announced new features for merchants during the “Conversations” event.
During the latter, Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of the parent company of Facebook, unveiled a cloud API aimed at making WhatsApp accessible to all companies, unlike the WhatsApp Business API, which was until then reserved for medium and large. companies and aimed to simplify exchanges with their customers. This existing API notably made it possible to engage in discussions with customer service on the messaging application, which allowed the switch to Meta to generate revenue.
A new cloud API and a paid offer on the WhatsApp Business application
This new API hosted by Meta should make it easier for developers to offer a more personalized e-commerce experience to consumers, without having to deal with issues related to data storage. Mark Zuckerberg thus indicated that “any business or developer can easily access our service, rely directly on WhatsApp to personalize their experience and speed up their response time to customers using our secure, Meta-hosted WhatsApp Cloud API”. Even if this new feature aims to simplify the daily life of companies, they will only be able to engage in conversation with customers if they have asked to be contacted.
Along with this new API, Meta also announced a paid version of its WhatsApp Business app with additional features. Among the latter, which are still under development, are options to manage conversations on up to 10 devices linked to a single account and to generate personalized links that companies can publish on their websites to encourage their customers. to turn to this new channel of communication.
A way for the American giant to attract a growing number of companies and isolate them in its ecosystem to push them to increase their spending on its platforms, in particular WhatsApp, an application bought in 2014 for 19 billion dollars. And this while the firm of Menlo Park must do with a slowdown in its growth, which pushes it to reduce the airfoil. Indeed, Meta has decided to slow down its rate of recruitment and to make budget cuts in its division dedicated to virtual reality and the metaverse. The construction of this parallel world has already cost the Californian group $13 billion in just 15 months.